End of March

The pension’s in - a few days early because of the Bank Holiday - so that makes for a longish April.  We’ve had a good Easter weekend so far, with a visit last weekend from friends we met on a cruise over four years ago, and next day from Sandra, with whom we’d planned to lunch out.  Martyn not feeling well, we opted to lunch at home instead: I knocked out a pilaff with what there was in the fridge: chouriço, mushrooms, red peppers, onions and garlic, and so far we’ve lived to tell the tale.  with the cruise friends we had home-made sausage rolls, hot cross buns and lemon sponge cakes, so you’ll gather that your obedient servants’ shadows are not exactly shrinking.

Between activities last weekend, I planted a few rows of potatoes in the raised bed at the kitchen door.  Alexandras, chitted from a bag bought at Fortnums, and Charlottes, bought as seed potatoes from an altogether more established seedsman.  Watch this space.  Sandra brought us a fine little azalea, so we’re busily plotting where to plant it.

The rest of the spuds are planted out.  Rather than fanny about with canvas bags and compost, we’ve planted them in the raised bed, and heaved in some blood fish and bone to encourage them.  Which exempts us from the decision what to plant in the raised bed.  I spent an hour in the garden yesterday dragging weeds out of the solid clay of the top bed, and shudder to think how many more hours it will take to clear the rest 

Today we parted company with Egg2, which has served us well for 16 years.  We liked the same model, Egg1, bought a few years earlier, so much that we bought another, so called because they are pointy at the front and round at the back.  Anyway, they both served us well, and Egg2 was altogether more reliable than its elder sibling.  Time has begun to take its toll, however, so we’ve replaced it with an electric car which, right now, is proving rather frustrating.  These days, you need a a moderately ungifted child to guide you through the maddening software and apps that attend modern day motoring.  If I finally master this one, I’ll be happy to hang up my stringback gloves.